


a stream that meets a boulder

by thetalkingcrocus



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Hannibal Lecter in Love, Introspection, M/M, Murder Husbands, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Fall (Hannibal)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 05:06:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14804945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetalkingcrocus/pseuds/thetalkingcrocus
Summary: It was strange how the unforgiving bite of the ocean let Will allow himself the quiet comfort of a stream.





	a stream that meets a boulder

**Author's Note:**

> For my sweet friend Z. I hope you (and all the rest of you readers!) enjoy! The title is from "For Good" from Wicked, because I am a tactless theatre kid at heart.

It was strange how the unforgiving bite of the ocean let Will allow himself the quiet comfort of a stream.

 

He had never abandoned the practice entirely, even when it made him feel absurdly guilty, even when the crisp fall colours in his memory were marred with his own blood on Hannibal’s kitchen floor and the tight embrace that didn’t really feel like trauma, despite the bloodshed accompanying it. But now, in this liminal healing place, as he and Hannibal fell into routines of wound care and rest and physiotherapy, he had time to return more and more often.

 

He had been afraid, at first. Afraid to lose himself to this, to allow himself this small comfort when he knew the blood on his hands (out damned spot!) had brought him here. But there was something about this grey in-between, about Hannibal’s quiet breathing next to him as he read or slipped into his memory palace, that made Will feel safer than he ever had to begin to figure out where to go next.  
  
So he started at the stream. And he went exploring. He followed the current, imagining his bare feet flexing in the muddy substrate, practicality be damned because it brought him back to sticky-hot Southern summers and running in the wild with childhood mongrels. He had the feeling that he was running with wolves now, and the unsettling follow up realization that it felt _right_.  


 

* * *

 

 

Hannibal had laid out their options on the second week of their recovery when they still had hollow circles under their eyes but the external wounds were beginning, piece by piece, to close over. He set out passports in neat rows on the rickety kitchen table, all with different names.

 

He looked carefully away from Will as he offered him the option to leave alone, “You could be on a plane back to them tomorrow. I would write a letter confessing your kidnapping.”

 

Will wrinkled his nose in disgust, “I was the one who pulled you over the cliff, Hannibal.”

 

Hannibal’s features smoothed over, a smile twitching at his mouth, “I have not forgotten.”  
  
“Do you think I regret it? Killing the dragon with you? Swimming to shore with you?”

 

Hannibal parted his lips as though to speak, and then stopped himself, instead just watching Will with dark eyes, tracing the line of the healing damage across his cheek.

 

Will is silent for three breaths, and then he catches Hannibal’s eye firmly, and holds it as surely as though he’d reached out a hand to prevent the older man from looking away.

 

“I forgave you a long time ago, Hannibal. If I have to forgive myself… that’s not about you. That’s not about regret.”

 

Will walked stiffly, still sore, to the knifeblock in the little kitchen. He picked up a chef’s knife, twirling it like an extension of himself and thinking about all the times he watched Hannibal do the same. He sheathed it slowly, imagining the give of Francis Dolarhyde’s body.  
  
“I’d… I’d do it again, Hannibal. If we had to. I’d do it with you.”  
  
He doesn’t miss the way Hannibal’s chest shudders with shaking breath at his use of the word “we”.

 

* * *

 

In the stream of his mind, Will finds himself drawn again and again to contemplating the power of water. He made a project of tracing the stream, seeing how far his mental map will take him, how many waterways from his past his brain can stitch together into a place for him to process his present.

 

He’s taken to skipping stones, feeling the soft water worn edges, the weight and power of the simplest projectile.

 

He only thinks of the bluff most of the time, the slow wear of time. He pondered the inevitability of ending up here with Hannibal. Of ending up with Hannibal at all. He thinks of the weight of trust this deeply human man has put in him, of all the wounds they’d caused each other.

 

In his stream he feels safe and wonders about the future and looks into the forest beyond the harshly sloping banks, straining his eyes to look for deer in the tangled shadows.

 

* * *

 

 

“What do we do now?”  Will asked one morning over a breakfast Hannibal had brought him in bed, fussing over the role of rest in recovery. Hannibal paused for a moment and then looked up as though lost in thought, or perhaps lost in fantasy.  
  
“We begin together. I would very much like to show you my beginnings, Will.”  
  
“You don’t need to beckon me with a broken heart this time.”

 

“No,” Hannibal said, thoughtfully, “it would seem my heart is no longer broken.”

 

Something inside Will, some internal injury he hadn’t been tending to while his body knitted itself back together, filled with warmth and wholeness and feeling. He wasn’t sure if what he felt was his or Hannibal’s. He _was_ sure it didn’t matter.  
  
Hannibal tasted of fresh grapefruit when he kissed him then, overwhelmed by the idea of learning a past and the implication of sharing a future.

 

They fought so well as one creature; now they had the rest of their lives and a place anew to collide and coalesce, to learn how to navigate all the moments other than the hunt in that eerie black in moonlight harmony. Will felt unmoored by this, adrift, and utterly at peace.

 

* * *

 

The smell of the stream was one of the most grounding aspects of the entire exercise. It made Will think fondly of Hannibal’s olfactory explorations of the world as he mentally trudged along the stream. It was becoming wider and shallower now, the beach ringed with sun-bleached wood and intricate chips of gravel.  

 

It felt less like making a decision than realizing he had made one eons ago, somehow, deep within himself. Will thought about the world he had launched the two of them into, and couldn’t find it in him to regret even that. He thought about the world to come, and although the particulars were hazy he was beginning to sense he didn’t care for much beyond the lapping of the water and the wild new freedom in his chest, this loving yearning broken thing he had become. So much of him was bloodied now, so much dark beauty.

 

He expected to see blood on the beach as he walked out of the stream. Instead, he found a shed antler, like his dogs would bring him on woodland romps. Hooked into delicate points, resting among the stones like an offering.

 

Will picked it up, pricking his finger on the sharp tip. He bled into the stream, part of this and of everything in that moment.

 

He opened his eyes and looked for Hannibal; he opened his eyes and looked for home. 

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments make my day! If you enjoyed this fic feel free to check out my other stuff or come yell with me @thetalkingcrocus on tumblr.


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